Tremaise and New Pratmor
Created by /u/Kerlyle GEOGRAPHY Tremaise is mostly Mediterranean grass, vineyard and farmlands, which makes it a good vacation spot. The tropical rainy season supports a large wetlands in the west of the country, while near the southeast the raised elevations cause orographic precipitation and supports a more temperate broadleaf forest. The home islands of New Pratmor have a Tropical climate. The islands themselves are somewhat sloped with the eastern sides having a more steep rocky face, supporting pockets of deciduous forest, and the western sides descending gradually to the ocean covered mostly in chaparral and cities as the islands are highly developed. BIOLOGY/ETHNICITY Both Prat and Tremai are humans though of slightly different ethnic background. Tremai have the ability to sing-on-the-wind, a rudimentary form of communication over vast distances, though it still takes many hours for the message to arrive. As long as the wind is favorable a Tremai can use this ability. Although a listener will not be able to discern words, emotions such as hope, lust or despair can be easily communicated. Prat have the ability to naturally orient themselves in the direction of their homeland of old Pratmor. This internal compass is not accurate enough to calculate degrees, but can be useful if a Prat finds themselves turned around in a jungle or at sea where otherwise the direction of travel is known. Fauna Sea-Boar – A species of island boar that lives around the isles and atolls of New Pratmor. They have adapted to have hook-like horns on their hooves and a high lung capacity and body-fat percentage. The end result is a boar that spends most of the day floating in shallow waters without moving, the typical laziness found in all long-living mammals. When a fish brushes its legs, assuming it is hungry, it will rapidly kick in an attempt to spear the fish and then bring it to shore where it can be eaten. Pratmor Barnacle – A species of barnacle that thrives on industrial and other wastes - as it eats it expels a large quantity of foul gasses that are primarily used to compress air cylinders for use in factories and in maritime applications. Practical but smelly. HISTORY If one were to look up rivalry in an encyclopedia, the vicious history between New Pratmor and Tremaise would no doubt be exhibit A. The bitter state of affairs between the two nations dates back roughly four centuries. At that point in time Tremaise was expanding aggressively like the waste line of a man four-plates deep at an all-you-can-eat buffet. They took advantage of weaknesses in surrounding kingdoms caused by a deadly famine, and this culminated in their attack on old Pratmor, a kingdom of people that lived on the coast and wetlands on the west side of modern Tremaise. Unlike many of the other kingdoms they had conquered, Pratmor had a distinct ethnicity and the people were stubborn…. people that have spent their lives living in a swamp generally are. For around 30 years the Prat people were continuously pushed back closer and closer to the coast until at last – in a final defeat they were driven from the shores of the continent and took to the seas before finally settling in what is today New Pratmor. The Prat people took up their new identity entirely, and soon they commanded not only a great fleet but a great nation that ruled the seas around Tremaise. Tremaise, a land-based empire, began to stagnate over the following centuries as the importance of maritime trade grew. Meanwhile, New Pratmor flourished. Where once they were pushed from their homeland by a great empire, their own empire now stretches far and wide. In the current day, Tremaise finds itself constricted by the stifling apparatus of Pratmor control over trade, banking, and sea-lanes in the region though they constantly and sometimes quite cleverly find ways to subvert it. SOCIETY New Pratmor is ostensibly a Constitutional Monarchy, if you consider bribes and corporate bureaucracy to be a constitution. Thus in many ways, the country is run as a Plutocracy. Because new Pratmor is a series of small islands, most people are cramped into an urban setting. The richer classes live higher in the hills of the islands, while the poorer live closer to the sea – which at first sounds like a good deal until you see the amount of sewage and factory runoff that flows through their neighborhoods. Tremaise is an absolute Monarchy under the constant reign of house Dumont (Old Tremai for “From the mountain” – which they quite literally are). Tremaise is also quite rural as opposed to Pratmor, and most make their living in farming with serfdom only being recently abolished. While Tremaise seems to lag behind the times in many ways they do have a prolific educated elite that lives in the cities – part of a national university system created by the government specifically to combat the growing power of New Pratmor. CULTURE Prat people have a careenage day – a product of their seafaring ways – where once a week the community will come together to help mend broken things, clean public plazas, thrift any out of use items, and provide food to the destitute. However, this practice is slowly becoming sparser as corporate interests contribute less to the practice and demand more from their employees. Tremai celebrate multiple meal breaks throughout their day and have a deep musical tradition, reciting oral stories with music during those breaks. A traditional greeting of the Tremai is to slap the hip of your comrade. This came about from the way Tremai farmers would slap the bottoms of their oxen to keep them moving – it means you are a part of the pack. OCCURRENCE OF MAGIC Magic users are no more or less common in these countries than elsewhere in Aokoa. Mostly mages are seen as interesting, but not very practical in the face of new technological advances. There exists a few reserved communities that follow the old ways – they are mostly left alone. MAJOR EXPORTS/IMPORTS Tremaise Imports literature, spices, iron ore, textiles Tremaise Exports cattle, foodstuffs, wine, manufactured goods, musical instruments, and coal Pratmor Imports lumber (the primary reason for its colony in Tellbos), spices, foodstuffs, cheap labor, dyes, bouillon, and rare earth metals. Pratmor Exports manufactured goods, loans, furniture, ships, textiles, glassware POSTS Tremaise and New Pratmor Contraband and Contravention: The Port of Vastemer The Evacuation of Batham Homelands and Far Flung Holdings The Adaptations of the Sea-Boar The Viscount Sadler People‘s Post of Ordunos: Suzeur Renaud removed from power in Tremaise MM Anniversary Celebrations on the Sadler Bridge The Giant’s Brew The People’s Post of Ordunos: Valentin Converts to Syncretism The Black Tide A butterfly among bats: Queen Elize of New Pratmor The Cornoth Trapezkriger Sinking of the Shana Maria Culling the Weeds: Downfall of Jun Lusong The Singharata Rebellion and the War With The Prats From one Queen to another The Chicken War The Knights of the White Shroud at Fastend Rock A Hum Upon The Hollow Heights: Revolution and the end of the war